Govt launches national research program into gambling

Federal, state and territory governments have agreed to fund a national gambling research program targeting problem gamblers.

Under a five-year agreement, the program will have $1 million a year, with the federal government contributing 30 percent of the money, to better define problem gambling and examine the effectiveness of existing harm minimisation strategies.

Announcing the research deal today, Federal Minister for Family and Community Services, Senator Kay Patterson, says while problem gamblers make up 2 per cent of the gambling population, they account for a third of total gambling expenditure.

"They'll be looking at various things - whether some sort of process that people can actually limit their capacity to gamble by precommiting a loss of limits on the machine that they're playing on, maybe having mandatory breaks in play, various things," Senator Patterson said.

"But we need to know what are the best approaches to this intervention and prevention."

Senator Patterson says the research will provide vital information on areas where there has been little research done to date.

"It's across every state and territory and it'll be research looking at intervention and evaluation of intervention for the very small percentage of Australians, about 2 percent, who actually have problem gambling and the havoc that wreaks on their families and themselves," Senator Patterson said.